So far today: You've met Honking-Slurping-Pooping Jimmy, witnessed Chewbacca and the rattlesnake electric therapy, saw me get attacked by a garter snake and Chewy loose Iguana Del Dialbo with the subsequent choas at poor Mrs. Tripp's house. Then there was 'O cool-Johnny Gillemot being a teenage under-aged driver wreaking his mom's car...the staged accident with Gherhing the Great, the Helms Bakery heist, the awful discovery of Jimmy's "fort-warming" present, hopeful Jerry "TT" chasing the boys up the third story only to have them escape out the window...me trapped in the second floor sun-room and trying to leap to death...only to be caught by Jerry and saved in the nick of time when the Wolf Pack had electrocuted Chewy (who was on his way down the "fire-escape" pole) only to break his arm in two places and was now being rushed to the hospital by my mom in Jerry's car.
Jerry was gone! That was all that mattered! Can I get an AMEN?
Gherhing the Great was intrigued by Gustav's legendary RAT KILLER! If the name doesn't make sense to you, it's probably because you don't know that a big-block Chevy motor (427's and 454's) were affectionately called "Rat" motors.
It's alive!
Rumor had it that it was a Holman and Moody built motor... but this was his own creation that beat everything he came up against. He was a legend at Lions Race Car Track and on Van Nuys Boulevard where the silly valley-boys who purchased brand new 409s and went cruising on Wednesday nights to impress the ladies.
Here is some home video of Lions Drag Strip from 1966. ANYWAY, O' Gherhing the Great couldn't keep his paws off the Rat Killer as he climbed underneath and checked out every inch of it, while the Wolf Pack was in the house laughing about runnin' off 'O Jerry and about Chewy's broken arm. Gherhing discovered that the sheet-metal indentation in the trunk where the spare tire usually sat, was cut away and only had a piece of fabric glued in its place. Guess what "Gherhing-the-not-so-great" did? He talked me into climbing into the trunk of my brother's race car! How many times can I say, Bad Idea!
BAD IDEA!
BAD IDEA!
BAD IDEA!
Yeah, we crawled in! Of course Gherhing began monkeying around with his racing harness and floor shifter and other junk until we heard Dr. Frankenstein (That's Gustav) come walking back in the direction of infamous RAT KILLER! We knew we were in trouble and climbed back into the trunk area and hid as quietly as we could in the stripped down, bare-metal, grease-smeared compartment. I gulped as though it were a Déjà vu...the tin Hamper of Death, only this didn't smell like diapers - it smelled like gear oil which was nearly as bad to my super-sniffer and was bound to be a hundred times faster. I socked Gherhing in the stomach just as Gustav fired up the monster.
In retrospect, I'm pretty sure Gustav knew we were in there, but had pretended not to notice us. Slowly, he moseyed on down Harding Avenue not to draw the ire of good 'O Mr. Lennon and turned onto Venice Boulevard heading east. We were tossed back and forth as the motor rocked the car from side to side as he sat at the light at Lincoln Boulevard at idle. Then, just as if he was at Lion's drag-strip...he revved up his "stall-torque converter" to 4,000 RPM and as the light turned green he punched the pedal to the metal with the Tachometer needle pegging the red-line at 8,000. With his wrinkle-wall tires that had been screwed to the rims the front lifted off the street and we shot off like a rocket launch. ONLY!
Only, Gherhing and I were like astronauts on a horizontal takeoff that had not been strapped into the rocket! Gustav's car was a true 10 second 1/4 mile hot rod. In order to achieve that, you had to reach something like 157 miles-an-hour in that short distance. Oh Yeah! I think Gustav knew, we were in there...and when he hit the throttle, Gherhing and I shot back into the rear of the trunk and were pinned against one another and to the metal, held in place by 11-year-old, bone-crushing, lung-suffocating, lips-folding-back, tear-producing, pee-pee-making amounts of G-forces and heavy metal thunder! You know that ride at POP (Pacific Ocean Park) where it spins and the floor drops out and you stick to the walls - well, this was like that - only 10 times more. Gherhing was stuck to me and I was stuck to the back and I could feel his warm pee-pee seeping into my pants and my lips felt like they were going to peel all the way back over my head like a zipper. Yeah, Gustav got us good... but then it got worst!
Sirens! The Venice Police Department Tried to catch the Rat Killer! Good luck with that one!
Gherhing and I got flung to one side, (squealing tires) then the other...(burning rubber) then the other... then upside down... then twisted... then another turn down Glyndon and my face was in Gherhing's wet pants...WET PANTS? PEE! Hello! I vomited and it sprayed the entire trunk space of the Rat Killer...Gherhing and I kept getting thrown around in it like we were pieces of chicken being coated up on the outside by throw-up! Gherhing - threw up! What took him so long? It was GROSS! I threw up again just after Gustav made a screeching right turn and my warm vomit of oatmeal and spoiled milk went directly in Gherhing's face. Gross and double gross!
Gustav spun the car around one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees slamming on the brakes perfectly parallel parking between two cars on Vienna Ave. He jumped out through passenger window of the car and just walked away - whistling like nothing had ever happened. By then, four Cop cars came careening around the corner and sped on past as Gustave just waved nonchalantly. Gustav was already a couple blocks away when one of the police cars came back. An officer looked inside as Gherhing and I were peeling ourselves off of the froth and begged him to arrest us.
He wasn't too happy and stood with his arms indignantly folded waiting for us to emerge from the hole we had previously climbed into. I held my hands out to him expecting him to hand-cuff us...but when he took one look at us...or was it... when he took one whiff of us...he gagged - ran for his car and told us to get home. There was no way he was taking us back to the Venice Police station. I was hoping for a good meal! We walked over to the Tikker's house and sprayed each other off with the water hose. We hooked our little fingers and I made a promise not to tell anyone about how he pee'd his pants! I still think it was a bad idea, but Gherhing the Great thought this was THE BEST DAY EVER!
We walked back to Harding just in time to get in on the Wolf Pack's awful prank on the little old lady next door!
Poor Edna... and even worst - poor, poor, poor Hutch! (As Steppenwolf would later say) The Wolf Pack "...was born to be wild"
Oh and also we got back in time to watch as the Wolf Pack nearly burned down the Lennon house!
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